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This Is Your Brain On Coaching: The Neuroscience of the ICF Coaching Competencies. [E-Book]

As a lifelong ‘synthesizer’ of information, I recognized that the science behind how our brain functions also explains the purpose behind each of the 11 International Coach Federation (ICF) Core Coaching Competencies - light bulbs were going off in my head one after the other as I took my neuroscience training with Be Above Leadership in 2015! Not only that, it explains why each skill is important as a catalyst for achieving sustainable behavioral changes, not only for our clients, but for ourselves as well.

At last we coaches have a way to describe coaching that is grounded in solid research - I’ve been waiting for it for 20 years and am honored to have been one of the visionaries to birth this resource! My intent with this work is to elevate our coaching profession from being labeled as ‘soft’, or ‘woo-woo’ - as it sometimes is - to consistently being recognized as a credible process for activating lasting and transformative change.

Here’s what participants in the 2016 ICF Midwest Conference plenary session said they learned about neuroscience & coaching, and how they can now describe it to others:

“Coaching is an opportunity to create client awareness of their unique brain power and how to engage it optimally to achieve goals & aspirations.”

“Coaching opens the brain to learning and forming new neural pathways.”

“The last 10 years of emerging neuroscience supports the core principles that leaders in the coaching industry have studied and observed empirically.”

“Neuroscience based coaching gives many entrances into cognitive processes. Soft skills are important and key to optimizing hard skills – based on various physical locations and biochemical transmitters.”

“Coaching + Neuroscience = Driving with GPS * How Neuroscience supports Coaching: 1. Leverages how the client works naturally to achieve goals 2. It helps explain many of the things we have experienced but did not have words to express. 3. Provides words to explain emotions.”